It’s true, folks—Ms. Oates will be gracing our campus with her inspired presence on Thursday, Feb. 10 to speak in Sibley Auditorium. Her appearance is part of the Townsend Center for the Humanities’ Avenali lecture series, which names a distinguished scholar as honorary Chair in the Humanities for one week every year.

The lecture is free (YUSSSS), but ticketed, so you know the drill: Show up at Sibley as early as possible on the day of (but not before us, please) and hope you can snag a ticket when they start handing them out at 5 p.m. Ms. Oates’ lecture begins at 6 p.m. and will address “The Writer’s (Secret) Life: Rejection, Woundedness and Inspiration,” which promises to leave us just as existentially unsettled as does her fiction.